Geographies was an interesting choice of words by the new Redflex EVP. Could that “geography” be Phoenix…. or could it be ARIZONA? That’s right DPS, we’re looking your way.

Where else is the bribery happening? Redflex says their shoddy internal investigation has uncovered two other locations, but of course that’s just a cover story. Of course there are more than two and it’s hard to imagine that bribery isn’t just standard operating procedure at Redflex.

So, where else has bribery happened? It has to be in Arizona, though there is no publicly available evidence to back it up, yet.

If you’re a politician you have two choices.

Choice A: Continue to run for cover and deny, deny deny. Then go to bed every night just hoping on top of hope that your name is never revealed. Have fun with that nightmare.

Choice B: Spill the beans on your cohorts before they do the same thing to you. It will make your involvement seem miniscule and may actually propel your career. Be the one who tells the truth about the Redflex scam and see your stock skyrocket.

It’s a pretty easy choice to make, but of course Arizona legislators like Rep. Karen Fann, Rep. Sonny Borrelli, Rep. Victoria Steele and Rep. Juan Escamilla choose to run for cover because they prefer cowardice to valor.

Meanwhile in Phoenix, Paradise Valley, Tempe, Chandler, El Mirage, Prescott Valley and everywhere else that Redflex has left their stain, the city council members are hiding under their desks and silent.

The company reported profit for the six months ended December 31, 2012 were cut in half from $7.2 million to $3.6 million thanks to growing resistance to automated enforcement. The firm reported 101 installations were removed, but only 54 new locations were added in six months.

So far, the company has also spent $1.2 million in legal fees related to the Chicago scandal. When Chicago’s red light camera contract expires, Redflex will lose another 13.6 percent of its income. The company also warns of the possibility of bribery revelations in other cities.

“The current investigation may identify other instances of similar dealings with the city of Chicago and/or other jurisdictions,” Redflex admitted to investors.

The fact that Redflex is having to admit that this bribery scandal is just the beginning is very telling. They’re conceding that other bribery allegations are about to surface from other cities and states and there’s nothing they can do to stop it. Redflex Death Watch 2013 has reached a quickening pace!

Q: What does this mean for Arizona?

A: It means that every politician and bureaucrat in this state with ties to Redflex, including DPS, ADOT, Governor Brewer, almost every single state legislator since 2008 and city council members, including mayors, on the list below should be put on warning immediately. Chicago-style corruption will not be tolerated and certainly not when it’s been uncovered.

Cities in Arizona which have had contracts with Redflex and should launch bribery investigations of their own:

You have refused to do anything about a system that was too corrupt for Chicago and for that you will pay dearly. Yes, THAT Chicago – the one whose mayor is Rahm Emanuel.

Members of the Arizona Republican Party, like Rep Karen Fann for example, have been given opportunities to ban Redflex and their scamera boxes from the roadways of Arizona, multiple times. Your party platform specifically states you are to oppose photo radar.

However, when given legislation (SB 1352, SCR 1029, HB 2579) or a wildly popular initiative that would get rid of Redflex and their unconstitutional system of phoney baloney ticketing, all we hear are excuses. It’s deafening and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

For the democrats who claim to give a rip about civil liberties – your defense of photo radar makes you a complete joke.

The game is ending and so is your career. Deal with it.

Speaking of people whose career is over with, Karen Finley, Redflex CEO aka the Wicked Witch of the West is done, fired, adios.

Gone with her are two other top executives, the CFO and top attorney (General Counsel). The Redflex Death Watch is currently entering it’s 4th week and we’re on the third halt of trading their stock. It will resume trading on Tuesday in Australia and so far the predictions are not good.

This house of cards has been swaying violently ever since Janet Napolitano installed their ring of spy cameras across Arizona highways only to skip town and head to D.C. The Redflex Chicago Scandal (yet to be named) will end the company as we know it. Investor confidence is shattered and will likely result in a sale with a measly sum compared to the 2011 bid by the Carlyle Group and Macquarie.

They should have done the deal and now they’re out of luck.

“Out of luck” is the best that any politician in Arizona who has defended photo radar or taken money from Redflex and their lobbyists can hope for. Behind bars is another scenario.

Some advice to Reps Karen Fann, Sonny Borrelli, Victoria Steele and Juan Escamilla – you’d better give any money back you took from the Redflex Gangsters and vote YES on the “Photo Radar Prohibition” bill when it goes to a floor vote in the AZ House. If this company and their kind is too corrupt for Chicago, think about what’s about to happen in Arizona.

Far be it for a driving politics website like this one to make a judgment call on investing, especially in foreign trades.

However, it’s easy to spot a company who’s panicking as they’re usually the ones running around with their pants on fire.

From the “we swear this is standard procedure file,” Redflex Traffic Systems has been forced to announce a request for a trading halt on the ASX (Australian) where shares of Redflex Holdings, Inc are exchanged. [Announcement]

This is the second time this month Redflex has requested such a halt ahead of big news about the results of ongoing investigations into the company’s business dealings.

Since the February 6th announcement, shares of ASX:RDF are down 33%. Another such drop would place them well below $1.00 (AUS) per share, which would be near 10 year lows for the stock.

The company making the same move twice in the same month, along with all the other bad news out of Chicago spells trouble for Redflex, all over the globe.

From January 2009 through June of 2010, approximately 1,700 volunteers of Arizona motorists and concerned citizens launched an effort called “Arizona Citizens Against Photo Radar” to push back on the unconstitutional and dangerous freeway photo radar system installed by Janet Napolitano after being approved in the budget proposal by Arizona Legislature.

Arizona Citizens Against Photo Radar or ACAPR collected north of 130,000 signatures using a measly sum of just over $4,000 in donations which mostly came from individuals in the group itself. These facts are indisputable and corroborated by the AZ Secretary of State Office, who even did an audit of the donations. Why? Because they didn’t realize how badly Arizona government screwed up by allowing for a network of Redflex spy cameras to be installed on AZ interstates and highways. The blowback was somehow unanticipated.

They just couldn’t believe that citizens could really put that much energy into fighting them with nothing in return other than the satisfaction of working hard to preserve their rights.

They were wrong. The effort was overwhelming, though it didn’t qualify for the state’s tough standards to be placed on the ballot automatically. Jan Brewer caved in and canceled the state’s contract with Redflex, but refused to put the citizens initiative on the 2010 vote, when she had the power to easily do it.

The cameras on the freeways indeed came down. Since that time, members of the CameraFRAUD group have been demanding legislature do their job and ban the rest of Redflex and American Traffic Solutions’ automated ticketing machines.

Yesterday, Representative Karen Fann [contact], chair of the Transportation Committee and Stan Barnes [contact], American Traffic Solutions horse’s ass lobbyist teamed up to make a mockery of the committee process. And while they were at it, they insulted the intelligence of their fellow Arizonans and then danced a little jig all over the shredded remains of our state constitution.

After hearing from just two members of this group, pro-camera lobbyists were paraded up one by one, each more delusional than the next, thanks to Fann’s appetite for statist grand-standing.

Then came Stan Barnes, the highest paid lobbyist in the state of Arizona who shills for ATS. He began by mocking the effort to get rid of his company’s cameras and then repeated lie after lie. Lies so ridiculous that audible laughing could be heard from the chamber.

Barnes: “A well funded, out of state group launched a citizens initiative against the cameras that failed to make the ballot”

Chamber: *Laughter*

Barnes calling $4,000 in just over 18 months “well funded” and ACAPR “out of state,” is an absolute joke and an insult to the hard work of this group which is still paying dividends for defenders of citizens’ rights.

Barnes designer jeans began to visibly shake as nervousness set in after that little liar’s rant.

However Barnes was just “doing his job,” as depressing as that is for hard working Arizonans. And his salary, in terms of our $4,000, makes him the equivalent of Goldman Sachs, Chase Bank, B of A or any other corporate welfare recipient/bailout baron in the state of Arizona. Barnes is well paid for his acting.

So well paid, in fact, that he has plenty of cash every cycle to donate the max amount to Rep Karen Fann’s campaign, records show. So Fann allowed for seemingly endless debate on a 1/3 of a page bill (HB 2579) “Photo Radar Prohibition” and throughout the proceedings, informed the other 5 members of the committee just how to kill it.

The most blatant act was visibly talking Rep Sonny Borrelli out of voting for HB 2579, after he said during debates that he would vote to send it to the House floor (yes vote).

Fann was counting votes and saw that hers would be the decider, so she leaned over to Borrelli (the committee vice-chair) and told him he had to switch to a NO. Borrelli caved to her demand voted no on HB 2579 then saying, in an effort to clear his conscience “My mother is retired LAPD and will kill me for this vote. She saw how rear end collisions went up with the cameras and hates them too.” Borrelli placed his no vote, giving Fann the cover she needed.

And they really expect the voters in their districts not to see through all this.

Every member of the committee who voted no, effectively told their districts that their job was NOT TO REPRESENT THEM, but to leave that up to someone else back home. They must be confused about why they go to the state capitol each session.

Fann clearly doesn’t understand her role as chair and allowed Stan Barnes, The Redflex contingency and her vice chair to turn the Arizona House of Representative Transportation Committee into a circus act, complete with the horse dung smell.

Arizonans aren’t buying it and this bill is likely to find its way to the House floor for a vote despite Fann and Barnes best efforts.

There has been a lot of whining down at the state capitol in the last two weeks as anti-photo radar/red light camera activists have applied serious pressure on legislators to cosponsor and support HB 2579.

They’ve used every excuse in the book and here are some highlights:

“I don’t cosponsor any bills, that’s just my policy.”

“It doesn’t matter if a bill has cosponsors and you should leave it up to the bill sponsor to contact them.”

“If I cosponsor this bill, another legislator who doesn’t like me might kill the bill to even the score.”

“I really wanted to cosponsor, but I just couldn’t find the time to go over and sign my name on it before it was filed.”

“You’ve missed some (arbitrary or made up) deadline and I’m no longer allowed to sign on.”

“All the phone calls and emails are a turn off and you should really back off before you upset your reps and they vote against your bill.”

These are what we call excuses and poor ones at that.

The real deal is that your legislature is mostly bought and paid for by photo ticket money that funds their campaigns.

The Redflex scandal in Chicago isn’t going away, any time soon. Politicians who may or may not be in bed with the camera vendor in other cities and states may claim that Chicago’s corruption doesn’t apply elsewhere.

Anyone using this excuse is either lying, ignorant or both.

Let’s take the entire state of Arizona as an example. More than 10 municipalities, such as Phoenix, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Tucson, Chandler, Prescott Valley, Surprise, etc still use a combination of speed or red light cameras. Despite the fact that photo tickets sent by mail are not legally binding in Arizona, millions of dollars in fines are still collected.

10% of that money goes into a fund ironically called “clean elections,” which provides public funding to political campaigns, like members of the Arizona Senate and House of Representatives. These folks, not coincidentally, are responsible for allowing photo radar and red light cameras to litter the roads and scam Arizona motorists.

What’s also NOT a coincidence is that 80% of candidates for Arizona Legislature use “clean” election money to fund their campaigns. If you connect the dots, that means that Redflex and American Traffic Solutions fund their operation and basically own them. If a bill (currently HB 2579) to ban them passes, most of that clean election money will instantly vanish. The political gravy train would stop dead in its tracks and there would be quite a few state senators and reps scrambling to find a way to fund re-election in 2014.

Those are the hard facts and they’re undeniable. Chicago-style corruption with backdoor payola is still likely to be going on, but the scheme in Arizona is right there in plain sight.